While a big earthquake is threatening Tokyo and is haunting all its dwellers' daily life, here is an example of Tokyo's quake-proof communities. Tokyo, known for its combination of high-rise urban form and low-rise buildings, and its extreme population density — 13,185,502 inhabitants on an area of 844.7 sq mi (2,187.66 sq km) for a density of 15,610.4 pp/sq mi (6,027.2 pp/ sq km) (but if you take the Greater Tokyo into consideration now you will reach at 42,607,376) — is to continually improve its risk management policies. This is a guarantee if the city wants to protect a large amount of its dwellers.
The video below, titled Tokyo's Quake-Proof Communities, explains one of the set of measures of these risk management policies.
Credit: CNN/Future Cities
Keep in mind that Japan is probably one of the most responsive cities due to its confrontation with natural disasters. The recent 3.11 events, however, highlighted the limits of these risk management policies. Consequently Japan is condamned to responding to these environmental stresses by a perpetually improvement of risk policies that must be much more adaptive.
Yet, while smart buildings include the latest technologies that provide a better safety management in the event of earthquakes, even those with high magnitude, — at least virtually (nobody can predict if even the smartest building can withstand strong earthquakes) —, questions remain unclear concerning the human-scale areas, these residential, commercial areas, namely urban villages (on the concept of urban villages or mura ムラ see Kuma Kengo's book Shin Mura Ron Tokyo (in Japanese… for now) for more details) hidden by these high-rise buildings but composing more than 50% of Tokyo's components.
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